I'll have to take a look at where the smiles are.. i don't have all the old ones in here yet, but the default vb smiles should be here...I'll check on all the tags as well...
ok, as far as the forum settings go - most of the settings can be set by each individual user...meaning that this forum is even more customizable than the old forum was. to edit the settings, you need to go to your "control panel" (it's the first menu on the bar above/at the very top of the forum).
once you go into your control panel, go into the "edit options" section of the CP (control panel)
from inside the options menu, find the "thread display options" and that's were you can change how you see the threads - whether their oldest to newest or newest to oldest...
you can also arrange what threads you see - whether they're a day old, a week old, a year old or all threads
does this help any?